What is a line - Idea development

As well as illustrating the action of Oli playing guitar I have also tried different ways of tracing/creating  a line in Illustrator and Photoshop.  I worked out how to convert a video file into individual jpegs using Quick Player.  /i then manipulated these in firstly in Illustrator and then in Photoshop.

This is a screen shot of the live trace setting

In Illustrator I tried unsucessfully to automate an action to live trace the jpegs ( as I videoed 15 frames per second it takes 900 frames to create a 60 second video!)  The action would have to be automated for this many frames,  So I settled for a 10 second piece using this method:

What is a line - live trace from Lisa Whitaker on Vimeo.

I was slightly more sucessful at automating the stylise filter trace contour in Photoshop.   I settled on this effect after experimenting with several filters however trace contour gave the best line effect. 

Trace Contour

Find edges

Glowing edges

Graphic pen

Ink outline

                                                                      Torn edges

Use Somebody -What is a Line from Lisa Whitaker on Vimeo.

I also experimented with adding the lyrics to the jpegs using the fill pattern feature in Photoshop and also filling the image with colour.

I tried using the special effects in Final Cut to see if these would be effective at showing the lines.  These are the results

I used the above images to try to create a flip book.  The paper needed to be slightly thicker and perhaps more images. The white line images did not print out clearly.

I also used a Final cut special effect line art which works reasonably well although does not look hand rendered :